PREFACE. 



In the following pages, the object of the writer is to give 

 brief, but it is hoped perspicuous and practical sketches of 

 some important improvements in modern husbandry. In 

 attempting to carry this design into effect, it has been his 

 intention to insert no matter which is merely conjectural or 

 speculative ; to give place to nothing not worth the atten- 

 tion of the person whose livelihood depends on his pursuits 

 as a cultivator ; and who has neither time nor money to de- 

 vote to such books as are expensive, voluminous, and foreign 

 or remotely related to available improvements in husbandry. 



With this view, the author has collected and generally 

 abridged from the sources which his occupation as editor of 

 the New England Farmer has made it his duty as well as 

 his pleasure to explore, the materials of the little work now 

 submitted. He does not pretend to have taken a wide sur- 

 vey of the field of husbandry, much less, in this tract, to have 

 given a plan of the whole premises. But he hopes his ob- 

 servations, though limited, may prove serviceable so far as 

 they extend. Agriculture is the most extensive as well as 

 the most useful of the sciences, and as an art may be com- 

 pared to the ocean, in which every stream of improvement 

 in the moral and physical condition of mankind pours its 

 contribution. Still it is not necessary to circumnavigate the 

 whole of this world of waters in order to make voyages of 

 valuable discovery. We cannot dip an oar nor launch a 

 skiff in or upon the bosom of this great deep, without find- 

 ing something to reward our adventures. 



